Future Integrated User Services (F-IUS) Fixed Voice Official & Enterprise Voice (FVO & EV)

Currently Defence’s Fixed Voice (FV) and Video Tele Conferencing (VTC) (at Official, Secret and Above Secret) and Mobile (at Official only) are all services provided by the Integrated User Services (IUS) Contract.

The aim of Future IUS (F-IUS) is to ensure the continuity of services whilst disaggregating the service portfolio.

The F-IUS Programme has assessed all services currently delivered under the single contract with the Incumbent and separated these into the following discrete capability bundles including:

a. Fixed Voice OFFICIAL and Enterprise Voice Telephony

b. Fixed Voice and Video at SECRET Telephony

c. Automated Call Distribution

d. Mobile Devices and Airtime

e. Mobile Device Management and,

f. ABOVE SECRET Voice and Video Telephony

This Request for Information (RFI) relates to the Fixed Voice OFFICIAL and Enterprise Voice (“FVO & EV”) capability bundle only, for which we anticipate releasing a Contract Notice during Winter 2024. Contract award is expected in 2025 with an anticipated term of three years plus one plus one (3+1+1).

The Authority is releasing this RFI to gauge the level of market appetite for the FVO & EV competition and to inform our procurement approach in advance of initiating a competition. No formal procurement process has been launched at this stage and this RFI does not represent any commitment by the Authority. Any future procurement, if conducted, will be subject to contract.

Currently we expect to run a single competition to contract for the service(s) as described in Paragraphs 9 to 10 of this request. We anticipate that this procurement will follow a procedure under the Procurement Regulations 2024 (which commence in October 2024), using the Model Services Contract, and will consist of two-stages: 1) Supplier Selection using a Dynamic Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (DPQQ), and 2) an Invitation to Tender (ITT). The options currently under consideration by the Authority are either; a “Build New” approach incorporating either a Software as a Service (SaaS) or MODCloud option, or; a “Takeover and Enhancement” approach where the new Service Provider will take on the existing service, stabilise and move to crown hosting, whilst delivering a new SaaS or MODCloud platform. We anticipate the winning supplier will migrate Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) enabled endpoints to the SaaS / MODCloud platform and provide field engineering support to endpoints that are not SIP enabled.